A few months ago, Jules Bourricaud did not imagine knowing such a trajectory. Fifteen-year-old, the native of Poissy arrived in Cahors at the age of one, is today at the Bordeaux volleyball hopeful pole (a first for a Lotois) and is coming out of a ten-day internship. with the France U17 team in a discipline he discovered only a year ago.
Athlete from an early age, Jules practiced swimming, basketball and triathlon for a long time in the Caduran city until the arrival of the Covid and the first confinement. An event that will mark a real turning point in his sports career. “When sports were able to resume, a friend told me “I play volleyball in Cahors, you just have to come with me”. In 2021, when he was fourteen years old, Jules started volleyball, a sport for which he immediately fell in love.

“From the start I was crazy about this sport”

“From the first training sessions, remembers the Cadurcien, I was crazy about this sport. I told my parents I want to play volleyball and the more I practiced it the more I liked it. When I started playing, I talked non-stop about volleyball to such an extent as soon as I came home in the evening after my lessons, I went to the basketball court at the Desprats stadium to train and work on receptions, passes… The teamwork, the choice you have to make quickly when you receive the ball… I like everything about this sport”.
In constant progress, Jules, from the height of his ninety-seven meter, wasted no time in joining the flag team of Cahors Volley, which plays in the Ufolep championship, with whom he played in the final (unfortunately lost). Very happy with his first volleyball season, despite this setback in the final match of the year, the Cadurcien did not yet know at that time that he was going to join the Pôle Espoir de Bordeaux a few months later. . “During the summer holidays, I took part in beach volleyball matches in Cabessut and someone said to me, ‘why don’t you try to go further in this sport?’ Some time later, I took part in training near Bordeaux and Olivier Audabram, who was training the hopeful center of Bordeaux, was present. At the end of the session, he told me that I had the potential to insert the hope pole and I said to myself I’m going”.

“I know I will learn a lot here”

Since the start of the school year, the young volleyball player from Cadurcy has therefore joined the Bordeaux hopeful center twelve months after having started in this sport. “I arrived with the desire to progress both in volleyball and in class. I know I will learn a lot here. Everything is new to me and I discover new things every day”. With 15 to 20 hours of weekly training, Jules “trains every day, and on weekends I play with the U17s of the Saint-Jean d’Illac club and sometimes I join the senior team in the Prénationale . »
Placed as a central “whose job is to block the net and attack. We have to be set to the pace of the setter”, Jules experienced unexpected new happiness in October. “I did physical tests with the pole at the beginning of October and after these tests, Olivier Audabram told me that he was looking for a central for the internship of the France U17 team which took place a few days later”. For ten days, the Cadurcien therefore participated in the training course for the France U17 team. After three days spent in Lille, the group then left for Belgium to contest two matches and then for Italy to play two more matches. “I had a great experience” says the Lotois who says today “happy to be at the hope center of Bordeaux. I love what I live. We follow volleyball and lessons and I am progressing in these two areas. I miss Cahors, my family, my friends sometimes, but I’m super happy to live this experience. “.
At the hope pole for two years, Jules does not want to draw any plan on the comet for the future. “My goal is to improve as much as possible during these two years and we’ll see where that takes me.”